Don't be Lazy, just get the ISO, wait for it to download, Install Virtualbox, Install Ubuntu and it's done what's so difficult about it?. The VDI for VBox is going to be some ~4GB why downlaod that much when you can just downlaod less than 700MB?.
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Uri HerreraJan 29 '12 at 5:53

It isn't being lazy it is being efficient. Don't want to waste the time, if one is already ready to go. Time is money, apparently you ain't got a clue.
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nitefrogJan 29 '12 at 8:13

@UriHerrera Is there a better option (besides downloading a pre-confugured VM) if you want to obtain an Ubuntu installation with a custom configuration and custom set of installed software?
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Anderson GreenNov 8 '12 at 2:45

@AndersonGreen you can easily customize an Ubuntu ISO and have the settings and software you would need.
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Uri HerreraNov 8 '12 at 3:40

3 Answers
3

At present a compressed image for Ubuntu 11.10 x86 is 608 MB, slightly less than a real installation CD.

However as was already said in comments I personally do not recommed to do so for several good reasons:

it is a security issue because there is no way to find out what the person who set up the machine may have installed in addition.

you can but you can not so easily customize your Ubuntu users (admin users, password, locale etc.) after the initial installation has been done.

There is no easy way to change the size of the virtual hard drive for your personal needs.

In case you need to reinstall or configure the virtual machine you will need to have access to a "live" environment, which is not provided with the image you downloaded.

Installing Ubuntu is an extremely easy task that will take you less than 20 minutes. This is also true when installing in a virtual machine. Therefore there is no good reason (not even being lazy) to not install Ubuntu directly.

For testing you could even boot your virtual machine to an Ubuntu live environment from the installation CD .iso without installation in a minute (but then you will not have benefits from Guest Additions)

In summary: you do not need a preconfigured virtual machine for testing Ubuntu.

You know, the difference between market-dominating projects like the Linux kernel, MS Windows and others to niche projects like most Linux distros (Ubuntu included, sadly) is that they don't tell users what they need, they ask users what they want.
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Yekhezkel YovelMay 23 '14 at 9:29

Bitnami.org has preconfigured Ubuntu LAMP Stacks (http://bitnami.com/stack/lamp/virtual-machine). However, these come configured with several extra apps and in a slightly odd configuration. I use them for testing apps and playing with different concepts. But for production environments I typically start from scratch with the latest Ubuntu LTS iso.